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We interrupt the Musk-Trump feud with a teensy bit of news from the climate front [1]
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Date: 2025-06-07
Ralph Keeling, director of the Scripps CO 2 Program, noted Thursday: “Another year, another record,” It’s sad.”
Here’s why:
In 1958, Scripps scientist Charles David Keeling, father of Ralph Keeling, began monitoring CO 2 concentrations at the NOAA weather station located at the observatory site. Keeling was the first to recognize that CO 2 levels in the Northern Hemisphere peaked in May, fell during the growing season, and rose again as plants died in the fall. He documented these CO 2 fluctuations in a record that came to be known as the Keeling Curve . He was also the first to recognize that, in addition to the seasonal fluctuation, CO 2 levels rose every year.
For the first time, the seasonal peak of carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere exceeded 430 parts per million (ppm) at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Observatory on Hawaii, scientists from NOAA and Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego reported today.Scripps Oceanography scientists calculated a May monthly average of 430.2 ppm for 2025, an increase of 3.5 ppm over May 2024’s measurement of 426.7 ppm. Scientists with NOAA’s Global Monitoring Laboratory reported an average of 430.5 ppm, an increase of 3.6 ppm over last year. [...]
x In the long run, this is actually going to be the important news of the day--co2 in the atmosphere passes another grim milestone — Bill McKibben (@billmckibben.bsky.social) 2025-06-05T20:33:11.672Z
In 2024, the average level of carbon dioxide rose faster over 2023 than at any other point since the recordings began, according to Scripps. The average readings for the 12 months was 3.58 parts per million higher than the previous year's average, breaking the 2016 record.
In a 2023 study in 16 countries, scientists at the University of Utah stated that CO 2 levels are higher than they've been in human history and highest in at least 14 million years. However, Keeling told NBC News that the last time CO 2 concentrations topped 430 ppm was probably more than 30 million years ago. "It's changing so fast," he said. "If humans had evolved in such a high-CO 2 world, there would probably be places where we wouldn't be living now. We probably could have adapted to such a world, but we built our society and a civilization around yesterday's climate."
The new record comes after the United Nations report released the last week of May stated that there is at least some chance that global temperatures could surpass 2°C (3.6°F) in at least one of the next five years.
Matt Kean, chairman of Australia's Climate Change Authority, wrote on Xitter in response to the Scripps and NOAA figures: "Carbon emissions are still rising, and the atmosphere is going to keep heating further until greenhouse gas concentrations stabilize. What sort of climate do we want to leave our children and those who come after them?”
Tick, tick, tick.
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